FOI 26-004 Airlifts from Caithness Cancelled Due to Weather
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 26-004 Airlifts from Caithness Cancelled Due to Weather
- Request Date
- 01 Jan 2026
- Response Date
- 27 Jan 2026
- Information Requested
I wish to make a Freedom of Information Request for the number of airlifts that have been requested to take place at Caithness General Hospital in Wick KW1 5NS but have been unable to take place due to weather in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 & 2025.
With a breakdown of each year.
- Response
The Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) do not hold information that directly reports “the number of airlifts unable to take place due to weather” in the precise form requested.
Accordingly, under Section 17(1) of FOISA, we advise that SAS does not hold a standalone dataset recording this specific measureAir ambulance activity is recorded in different ways depending on whether a mission was completed or stood down. When SAS aircraft cannot fly because the weather is “out of limits”, we may ask HM Coastguard Search and Rescue to carry out the transfer, or the mission may be delayed until it is safe. Sometimes multiple aircraft are allocated to the same incident over several days. A resource might be stood down due to weather more than once before another aircraft completes the transfer.
Weather stand‑downs are recorded at incident level, so we can report:
- the number of incidents where no air transfer happened due to weather, and
- the number of weather‑related stand‑down records, even if the patient was later transferred.
Please see the table below detailing the two points above. These figures represent the recorded number of incidents and resource allocations where weather was recorded as a stand‑down factor.
Year
Incidents – No Transfer Due to Weather
Resource Stand‑Down Records Weather (where a patient may be transferred later)
2015
0
0
2016
0
0
2017
0
0
2018
0
0
2019
0
1
2020
0
0
2021
0
0
2022
3
8
2023
5
5
2024
4
4
2025
2
3
